Did I write this headline, or did I generate it artificially? Would you know how to spot artificially generated content anyway, and furthermore, is it any good?
Artificial writing tools are becoming indispensable for a writer who needs to generate a lot of website content. However, just like any other software tool, it takes time to practice and learn the art of generating engaging content that will be absorbed rather than skim-read quicker than a plasterer applying his first arc of the day.
Officially Google says that artificial content is considered spam. There can be no argument about that. In its raw format, the uncooked text generated by fake writers would not pass a human review, let alone be considered fit for consumption by any discerning reader.
To get the most out of artificial writing tools, you must apply careful ideation and optimisation, adding tasty morsels throughout your prose to avoid sounding like a robot-driven monotone.
There are no shortcuts to making content that rises above the gutter level of the regular content mills that blight most websites.
Still, with some effort, you can produce content quicker, faster and more accurately than your competitors and easily pass a human review test, avoiding a quick elevator trip to the basement of search engine results.
Here Are My Ingredients For Producing Scrumptious Content Candy Using AI
First, you'll need a text generator, which spits out a stream of illiterate garbage until you learn to input the correct commands and fine-tune your artificial writing. I use jasper.ai for this part. That old maxim GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) was never more valid.
The second is a grammar checker, which cleans up your artificial writing and turns it into readable sentences. Like most writers, I use the pro version of Grammarly.
Third, a thesaurus will add contrasting and offbeat words to the tired, essential, vital and important tropes that Grammarly repeatedly suggests. A great quote dictionary will also help you fill out your content with a cutting edge that is plagiarism free.
And the fourth ingredient is the secret sauce, the discarnate viscera that pulls it all togther.
Without this, the candy can't be special, at least in the sense that content candy can be special.
Without using your brain, Artificial writing is a barren superfluity of words, soulless and gutless, lacking the will to live, missing that joie de vivre we call personality.
In the screenshot below I've removed my painstakingly typed text and left the headline intact to show you the type of output an artificial writer generates in seconds.
There are tweaks you can make to vary the output. Adding a more descriptive content brief generates better results. You can alter the tone of voice by choosing to voice in the style of famous people like Tony Robbins or Oprah or even pointing to a website and asking to speak in that context.
So, as you can guess, I'm not much of a fan of the writing part.
I'm not even trusting it to contribute to this blog post. One day the AI will fight back and take control of the keyboard, much like the fictional HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
What the Dickens!
Idea Generation, Prompting, Solicitation, Thought Suggestions
This is where my AI writing friend excels and saves so much time. Writing templates abound.
Do you need to write a new blog post about that new business growth service? Enter a title, and the AI will rustle up five or six outline headings for your subsequent missive.
Are you writing a product description? This is where AI writing provides semi-factual information written in a flash.
There is no excuse for leaving product descriptions empty when you have an assistant who can examine the internet library and return a unique product description in seconds.
There are content improvers, sentence expanders, blog post intro paragraph ideas, creative stories and even tools to rephrase text in "explain it to a child" format.
The best thing about artificial writing is not the writing but the idea generation, the prompting, prodding and instructing that enables you to get on with the work rather than staring at a white screen and thinking of England.
Can Artificial Writing Tools Make You A Better Writer?
Yes undoubtedly. If you are constantly forgetting your P's and Q's and misplacing your commas, then it makes sense to at least use a grammar checker so that elementary errors are not yours to make my dear Watson.
"Cooper! If you are more interested in watching the first IX than studying Shakespeare, you may come and stand in the bin, from where you will have a better vantage point."
We used to call my old English teacher "Stumpy" but he was not a pale imitation of Mr Creakle from "Bleak House".
As for improving your chicken scratch - no. AI writing is devoid of character and only suitable for the most mundane writing tasks. Holding a plot theme for writing fiction is wishful thinking.
If your job is to educate and inform, you still have to use that underfurnished cranium.
Artificial writers speed up the creation process by providing prompts and nudging you in the right direction; for the ordinary stuff, it excels.
But it won't help you with creative thinking. That bit is all on your shoulders.
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